The Leake County Revelers were a
country music
Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, ...
string band popular in the
U.S. South in the 1920s and 1930s. The members were from in and around
Sebastopol, Mississippi
Sebastopol is a town in Leake and Scott counties, Mississippi. The population was 266 at the 2020 census.
History
Sebastopol was originally called "Hathaway Springs". The town was in existence before the Civil War but not incorporated until 191 ...
, led by
fiddle
A fiddle is a bowed string musical instrument, most often a violin. It is a colloquial term for the violin, used by players in all genres, including classical music. Although in many cases violins and fiddles are essentially synonymous, th ...
r Will Gilmer, with R. O. Mosley on
mandolin
A mandolin ( it, mandolino ; literally "small mandola") is a stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally plucked with a pick. It most commonly has four courses of doubled strings tuned in unison, thus giving a total of 8 ...
and banjo-mandolin, Jim Wolverton on five-string
banjo
The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, and usually made of plastic, or occasionally animal skin. Early forms of the instrument were fashi ...
, and Dallas Jones on
guitar
The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...
. The band was formed in 1926.
They made a series of 40 recordings for
Okeh Records
Okeh Records () is an American record label founded by the Otto Heinemann Phonograph Corporation, a phonograph supplier established in 1916, which branched out into phonograph records in 1918. The name was spelled "OkeH" from the initials of Ott ...
and
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music, Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the North American division of Japanese Conglomerate (company), conglomerate Sony. It was founded on Janua ...
from 1927 through 1930, most recorded in
and
Jackson, Mississippi
Jackson, officially the City of Jackson, is the Capital city, capital of and the List of municipalities in Mississippi, most populous city in the U.S. state of Mississippi. The city is also one of two county seats of Hinds County, Mississippi, ...
. Their biggest hit was "Wednesday Night Waltz" followed by "Goodnight Waltz", recorded in 1927. Over 195,000 copies of this
records were sold by 1931 and the 78 rpm disc remained in print continuously into the 1950s.
External links
*
AllMusic biography of the Leake County Revelersby
Eugene Chadbourne
Leake County Revelers, The
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